|   results of re-truing machine built wheel? | GMF
Jan 8, 2004 2:21 AM | | My wife got me a new (to me) bike for hanukah last year, and i've been tweaking it when i had the time to get it in tip-top shape (the previous owner knew nothing about bike maintenance). When i finally got to the wheels, i know i made a huge difference in their build quality (rear tensioned about 20% too low, totally inconsistent tension, and quite out of true... all taken care of). This got me to wondering if this maching built wheel, trued by a reasonably competent wheel builder will have the same quality as if the same person laced it from the beginning. My only thought is that the spoke threads didn't seem prepped at all, so nipple tension was pretty inconsistent, but that won't really affect the strength, just truability.
Any thoughts on this?
-Damon |
| re: results of re-truing machine built wheel? | jw25
Jan 8, 2004 9:07 AM | | Assuming the spokes and rim were properly prepared, a human-trued wheel should be the same as a human-built one.
The machines used to build wheels are getting better in terms of releasing wind-up and getting even tension, but I'm still more comfortable with the human touch. Besides, I'm willing to spend some time getting wheels perfect, where a factory is more comcerned with quantity.
I believe some of the larger retailers use this method on their wheels - a machine laces and starts the tensioning process, then a human takes over and brings them up to final tension and true. Saves time, and should result in a strong wheel. |
| re: results of re-truing machine built wheel? | uber-stupid
Jan 9, 2004 12:03 PM | | I can imagine what you mean about bad wheel maintenance, after having ridden in the Boston/Cambridge area for a while, you can see the difference. I've seen people riding around on bikes that are clearly well taken care of, or were bought from a shop that pays a lot of attention to the details when they put the bike together. And normally the bikes are fine. But I've also seen people riding around on bikes where the back wheel looks like a snake, and their rear brakes have been loosened to compensate as a result. I had to repair a rear wheel on such a bike for a roommate of mine who'd bought the bike for $20, including the kryptonite lock and cable. You can imagine the shape the bike was in.
If I had to rate wheel strength, I'd say that the hand built wheel used by an attentive rider, perhaps who built the wheel himself, would be the strongest. The hand built wheel on a bike of a rider who wasn't very attentive, but at least knew to buy something hand built would come next. A machine built wheel with decent quality parts that was taken care of by a good shop during assembly and/or taken care of by an attentive rider, would probably fall into about the same, but would last longer due to the attentiveness of the rider. A cheap wheel ridden by someone who assumes that the product is at its peak performance out of the box would fall dead last.
But since I've now hopelessly rambled on for too long and just now realized I haven't answered the question, I'd say the wheel would poosibly have been stronger if you'd built it by hand first. The reason being, a machine doesn't really know to inspect the parts. Most wheelbuilders won't build a rim that's already warped, because that would mean building a brand new wheel that's in effect already been repaired before having been used. I'd agree with the last response, though... if the machine is just there to get the wheels started, and a human finishes the job, the wheel will probably be the equivalent of hand-built quality. The machine in that case is basically an electric screwdriver with 32 heads arranged in a circle, to get the thing started. The art is more in truing the wheel once the parts have been arranged and put in place. |
| re: results of re-truing machine built wheel? | GMF
Jan 9, 2004 3:30 PM | | good point about inspection of parts... didn't think of that one. I'm not too concerned about it, though, as this wheel is uber-bomber and will likely never need truing again (straight 14s, beefy mavic freeride rim, etc.).
Thanks for the thoughts, both of you.
-Damon |
| | TwilightZone
Jan 15, 2004 7:55 PM | | |
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